Tom Hall and John Romero Q/A at G+ Hangout on 2012/06/25

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Scarlet
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Post by Scarlet »

I want Tom Hall to be as far away from new keen initiatives as possible.

The reason why is because it's impossible for his type of ideology to produce something good. The reason why is because he wants to flip a buck. Otherwise it's pointless and to no avail to produce a game that will not be a big time cash cow. DOS graphics are not something that sells big nowadays. What he is into, or at least someone told me, is facebook applications and such stuff which in all honesty seem to be a far cry from what KEEN is or should be in my opinion. If he did go back to keen, he'll probably go for 3D stuff, and ruin it kinda like they ruined monkey island 4 or countless other games with their 3-D turn. :P
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

Scarlet wrote:Otherwise it's pointless and to no avail to produce a game that will not be a big time cash cow.
Scarlet wrote:What he is into, or at least someone told me, is facebook applications and such stuff which in all honesty seem to be a far cry from what KEEN is or should be in my opinion.


If that's true, I'm not sure there's anything to worry about. If they wanted to churn out cheap Keen-Ville sausage they would've done so already (something we've gone over a dozen times in my Keen Marketing thread).

Not to mention the fact that's it been about 20 years since the last, official Keen game was announced.
Scarlet wrote: If he did go back to keen, he'll probably go for 3D stuff, and ruin it kinda like they ruined monkey island 4 or countless other games with their 3-D turn. :P
I don't see anything wrong with 3D (kind of what you expect from me, though, heh). In fact, based on what Tom Hall said, I would assume that he wanted Keen to go into the 3D direction. And its not like Keen had hand painted graphics that a 3D game would ruin.
The reason why is because it's impossible for his type of ideology to produce something good.
I agree that people change. And I certainly think that if Tom Hall was to make TUIT, it wouldn't be what he wanted it to be when he first announced it-- the gaming world has changed along with him.

But if someone was to make a new Keen game, Tom Hall would be one of the first people I'd trust to make a good game out of it. Because if even Tom Hall can't make a good Keen game, I can't think of anyone else, besides the best of PCKF, but I think we can assume that the fans aren't going to get a chance to make a commercial Keen game anytime soon.

I think Tom Hall making a new Keen game would be preferable to some stale game studio with no emotional connection to the series and are only looking for the quickest buck. Even if Tom Hall is driven by money (to sell the game he would have to make it profitable), he would still have that emotional connection to the series, I don't think you can get past that.
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Scarlet
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Post by Scarlet »

If they wanted to churn out cheap Keen-Ville sausage they would've done so already
I don't think they would have. They think that other random-ville sausages do better. Also, they probably know that they would piss people off if they did make some sort of keenvilleish sausage. Keep in mind that people make money from facebook apps. We fans do not make money off of mods. So there is a legitimate potential lawsuit there.

I don't see anything wrong with 3D (kind of what you expect from me, though, heh). In fact, based on what Tom Hall said, I would assume that he wanted Keen to go into the 3D direction.
Of course there's nothing wrong with it per se.
But, the thing is that in my experience, 3-Ding a game is something that is done because of the profit motive, and it tends to reduce the quality of the game. Hence I am very much against this, because on top of everything else, that goes against the general dos spirit of keen games.

But if someone was to make a new Keen game, Tom Hall would be one of the first people I'd trust to make a good game out of it.
I totally disagree. Tom Hall was only one of the makers of keen. There were others at play there. To take one element of keen's creators, and elevate him to the status of god, that is just wrong I think. I seriously doubt that he could have done a better job than has been with the TUIT trilogy.

I think Tom Hall making a new Keen game would be preferable to some stale game studio with no emotional connection to the series and are only looking for the quickest buck. Even if Tom Hall is driven by money (to sell the game he would have to make it profitable), he would still have that emotional connection to the series, I don't think you can get past that.
Why should we even consider there being a company that makes the stuff? What's wrong with the community and people attached to the community here? I prefer what we have already. Lots of good stuff is produced, so why break a good thing?

As for emotional connection, I really do not think that game developers have that. They do games in order to make a living. Profitability is basically what they live for. They might be able to tweak a little bit of stuff here and there, but the bottom line is that profitability speaks, and hence therefore they have no choice. Either do what the now quite sad market wants, or go bankrupt. Naturally nobody has a choice. We at the community here however are not bound by the market.

Recently a great game that I liked will not be seeing its third episode in its series being made. The leader of that group simply said that it is not profitable for the company to do it like they did, that it would be a financial disaster. That's the sad reality in today's world. :(
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Post by Gridlock »

As for emotional connection, I really do not think that game developers have that. They do games in order to make a living. Profitability is basically what they live for.
This is absolutely not true, especially for game companies. Yes games have to be made with profit in mind, but the economics, marketing, and business details are handling by only certain people in a game company. The actual programmers, designers, artists, writers, etc. who work on games can be incredibly passionate about their work. When creative, hardworking people don't have to worry about the business stuff, you can tell that they have an incredible emotional connection with their work. Naughty Dog (Uncharted) and Rocksteady (Arkham Asylum/City) are excellent examples. I think you would change your mind if you watched some of the behind the scenes videos for Uncharted 2. Sadly, many game companies and developers these days lack that kind of enthusiasm.
3-Ding a game is something that is done because of the profit motive, and it tends to reduce the quality of the game.
3-D engines have progressed a lot within recent years. Given a good engine, passionate developers, and enough time, I don't quality would be an issue so much as how the concept itself is executed.

Also, I agree that Tom Hall has been idolized around this forum and perhaps other individuals deserve just as much credit as him. However, he was the man who imagined most of the Keeniverse, and I hold him in high respects for being able to make such a crazy idea work. As a professional in the game industry, he probably has the best chance of anyone to work on a new Keen game. I know that if he puts his mind to it, he will be a guiding influence on any new installments.
I want Tom Hall to be as far away from new keen initiatives as possible.
Are you a fan of Keen GBC? If none of the developers have any connection with Keen, you can bet there will be radical changes in a new Keen game, probably not for the better.
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

Scarlet wrote:I totally disagree. Tom Hall was only one of the makers of keen. There were others at play there. To take one element of keen's creators, and elevate him to the status of god, that is just wrong I think.
I do not put Tom Hall to the title of "god" nor did I make any such implication-- in fact, I made sure I stressed the opposite by including the fans as being another group capable of doing a new Keen game justice (thanks for conveniently leaving that part out). So please do not lump me in with the people who idolize Tom Hall :)

My point was if you can't trust the only professional game developer who has said he would make a new commercial Keen game given the rights and just so happens to be the guy who says Keen was him personified as a kid, then you've really narrowed down your list of people who can do a *commercial* Keen game justice.
Gridlock wrote:As a professional in the game industry, he probably has the best chance of anyone to work on a new Keen game..
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Last edited by Lava89 on Thu Jan 31, 2013 23:08, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by thehackercat »

Elevating Tom Hall to a slightly higher position than those others on the original Keen team is okay, because he was the creative director. Keen was his idea, and the series was his baby. With the extensive modding community we have here, I don't think his word should be absolute law. That is to say, there's no reason to take whatever Tom says as forever-and-ever, Amen, end of story, canon, and then abandon our ideas for the series. No, I think he can certainly be trusted to send Keen in a good direction.

And, in reply to Scarlet's claim that bringing a game series into the 3D world is almost always bad: I would like to submit an exception. Metroid Prime. That is all.
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Post by Keening_Product »

thehackercat wrote:Keen was his idea, and the series was his baby.
Not just that: Keen effectively IS HIM! IIRC, he once told me (and before and since has told umpteen other people) Keen was based on himself as a kid! (Right down to his frequent trips to Mars.)
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